France’s Louis Vuitton sues counterfeit online sellers in China

BEIJING: French luxury goods firm Louis Vuitton is seeking damages from three people convicted of offering counterfeit versions of its clothing, shoes and handbags on Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s popular Taobao shopping website, a Beijing court said.

A district court in Beijing accepted the lawsuit filed by Louis Vuitton, owned by LVMH, the world’s biggest luxury group, last Monday, according to a statement on the court’s website.

The company is taking the three defendants, two of them surnamed Liang and the other surnamed Han, to court, “asking them to stop infringing on its trademark and is seeking compensation of economic losses of 250,000 yuan ($37,900)”, according to the court statement.

Louis Vuitton could not be reached for comment. It was not possible to reach the three defendants for comment.

The three defendants were selling the goods on Taobao, an online shopping site similar to eBay and Amazon that brings together buyers and sellers, according to the court. Alibaba Group did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit comes three months after a U.S. clothing industry group urged the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to blacklist the Taobao website for persistent intellectual property rights violations despite pledges by the e-commerce firm to curb the problem.

The three defendants were given unspecified criminal sentences in 2014 for selling counterfeit versions of Louis Vuitton goods, the court said.